Move right along
When asked why he robbed banks,
Willie "the actor" Sutton is famously but falsely said to have replied:
"that's where the money is." Perhaps the IRS has been thinking along
the same lines by targeting groups
using words like "patriot" and agitating against "how the government is
run" and about the debt. Far Right think tanks and agitators tend to
have rich supporters.
According to some, Jewish groups as well
have been selected for special handling, whether pro-Israel or purely
religious. Perhaps not. Perhaps it's all political, a claim which was
and is the standard Republican answer for any charges against Nixon.
The
comparison with Richard Nixon and his enemies list is inescapable
although we certainly don't have audio tapes of President Obama telling
Jimmy Graham that we need to go after the Jews who are "ruining the
country." Even for long term and relentless Nixon defenders, the
opportunity to suggest impeachment, to demand impeachment now is
so irresistible that it seems at long last to be acceptable for
perennial supporters to remind us of Tricky Dick's tricks even though
the dismissal of such charges as political is maintained.
We
know Nixon was behind a "weaponized" IRS, but do we have a smoking tape
of Obama? I doubt it but that difference will be forgotten. It
happened under his watch and that's enough. Claims that the IRS is
independent won't matter. Questions about whether the IRS was
politically motivated to take down Al Capone won't arise nor did anyone
accuse President Hoover of such things.
Of course
there have been so many ridiculous claims against Barack Obama of
impeachable 'high crimes' already that the demands of the self-righteous
Right don't quite have the desired effect on the unconverted and those
who catalog Republican transgressions. Still, people like Smugster George sWill
aren't going to let it go and the attack on possible 2016 candidates
will be joined by increasingly nasal and polyphonic choruses of Sic Semper Tyrannis.
sWill, wearing his outrage costume on ABC's This Week,
tells us " all hell" would have broken loose had Bush used the IRS
against progressives and his poker face never twitches as he forgets
about the political assassination of Valerie Plame and other scandals to
voluminous to list. And of course that Bush might in fact be guilty of the same thing isn't quite obscured by the standard props of Gerogewillian pomposity.
But
the level of 'truthiness' in charges against several presidents,
including Bill Clinton for using IRS harassment in retaliation against
personal lawsuits is significant and of course it's scary. Anyone who
has been through an audit knows that, and Obama has no choice to make
an open investigation rather than to invoke Executive Privilege as his
predecessor was wont to do. But regardless of who the Special
Prosecutor might be and regardless of evidence or lack thereof, I can
already smell the stink of American politics once again.
There is an element afoot that will stop at nothing to discredit or undermine the Obama administration. Benghazi, IRS, AP.....trivial, unproven, it does matter. If Obama found a cure for cancer the call would be..."He is trying to bankrupt the Health Care Industry".
ReplyDeleteEdwin Edwards, the former unique and colorful and corrupt former Governor of Louisiana once said.....
"The only way I can lose this election is if I'm caught in bed with either a dead girl or a live boy. "
I believe the far far far out right is looking, at this moment, for the former, but would gladly settle for the later. Contact Karl Rove for details.
That element is called the GOP, I think. One reason for the outrage is of course the dirty deeds of Bush, but the real reason for all the investigations of "conservative" organizations is the huge flood of applications for 501C3 status by right wingers since Citizens United opened the barn door letting the fat cats in. It doubled in volume last year so no wonder!
ReplyDeleteBut yes, they will stop at nothing and do anything because if you fling enough sh*t, some of it will stick and for people disposed to hate him, it will all stick.
yuppers..... have read enough of the 501C3 tax dodge stuff. Just more Rove/Norquist tax dodge crap. Frankly.... I would like the IRS investigation of Sarah Palin .... and how much she is dodging taxes on her whore money. Betcha she has a hughe 'clothing ' deduction
DeleteThere's a whole lot more shit that the Bush WH did vis-à-vis using the IRS to go after people, ditto the FBI. This nice lady (http://southernbeale.wordpress.com/)can fill you in.
ReplyDeleteBTW, most of the orgs that the IRS was scrutinizing were 501(c)(4) applicants not those looking for 501(c)(3) status. The differences are outlined here:
(http://www.nj.com/helpinghands/nonprofitknowhow/index.ssf/2008/07/the_difference_between_501c3_a.html)
The reason that they were scrutinizing so many of them may or may not be political. That most of those investigated were dirtbags is not really up for argument, imo.
"the far far far out right is looking, at this moment, for the former,"
I assume you mean party leadership, 'cuz they're are fewere "moderate" prominent GOP'ers than there are moderate Talibaners.
It's true. When Nixon begins to look like a Socialist in comparison, the word "conservative" becomes indistinguishable from Taliban.
DeleteThe only difference between Nixon and the other pols, dem and repub? Nixon got caught, and people back then still harbored the illusion of honest government.
ReplyDeleteAnd this...
Far Right think tanks and agitators tend to have rich supporters.
And the lefty's don't?
There's money in politics, and dem and repub are just blue and red flags for the saps to rally under.
I bet you weren't even born during Nixon's Presidency, Anonymous. No, Presidents are not all the same. Nixon was corrupt. Reagan was corrupt to his soul. So was Bush II. Whatever their flaws, I do not believe that Ford, Carter and Clinton were corrupt. We have paid for not standing up to the corruption of Reagan and Bush with a depression. Yet Obama still cowers in a corner when it comes to dealing with the financial crimes of Wall Street and the banks. It's long past time for him to make it clear which side of the fence he is on.
DeleteAnon, it's the Oligarchs, in as much as they control the game you are in a large sense correct.
DeleteAre you being serious? Look, the majority of applications made subsequent to Citizens United were by right wing groups posing as "social Welfare" organizations when they were actually propaganda propagators. The big money in America is predominantly on the Right hand side and this bullshit about "both sides are the same" is one of the more obnoxious defenses they've been using for at least half a century. Its as though 100 to one were the same as 50:50. It's not.
ReplyDeleteNixon got caught and Reagan got caught and Bush got caught. The difference is that big Republican interests learned to wrap up shit and sell it as Hershey bars. The crimes of Reagan were far, far worse than those of Nixon and then there was Bush. Sorry, dude. Both sides are not the same as much as you'd like to appear above the argument. So far the "Dems" haven't started useless wars that crippled the economy or caused dangerous deregulation that has killed people and caused disasters in the interests of profit, but you know that.
Going back, btw, to the early 1900's, it was primarily "conservative" ideology that we can thank for a series of "intervasions" of various Latin American countries and the Philipines. WWI was a toss-up, WWII, Korea, Vietnam, The Mayaguez, Grenada and numerous other "dust ups" are the result of foreign policy idiocy, generally traced back to the policies of Teddy Roosevelt and his spiritual heirs.
ReplyDeleteTeddy was simply too complex to write off as a military adventurist with colonial aspirations. He would loathe Republicans today as much as we do and particularly had he the ability to see what they'd get up to in the century after his death.
ReplyDeleteJust who are the "spiritual heirs" of Roosevelt? We are. Certainly his "square deal:" his three C's of conservation of natural resources, control of corporations, and consumer protection aren't things one associates with the Neo-Cons or the Tea idiots or that lot. He was a Trust Buster, a believer that government should intervene to eliminate social ills, a believer in graduated income taxation, in pure food and drug laws, women's suffrage, in protecting nature and the public from corporate greed.
Did he support US foreign intervention? well, of course. Did he support a strong military, yes, he did but that's hardly a historical anomaly, a deviation from American tradition. We've invaded Canada for chrissake -- twice -- and long before anyone owned a Teddy bear.
Yes, I think he believed that the spread of peace and prosperity in America was the result of our virtues and should be exported for the benefit of a world then dominated by colonial powers. There wasn't all that much at the time to teach him otherwise.
I think W had no such beliefs even though he'd probably like us to think so. The man was born in 1858. His military enterprises and experiences were long before the hideous lesson of WW I. Would he have adopted the pacifism that the US underwent in the 20's and 30's? Would he share our cynicism about the Military Industrial Complex if he were born a hundred years later? We can't know, but I think so.
We'd be a sad country today without him: steel mills in Yellowstone and enough social ills to make Dickens weep and Rand cheer. I prefer to preserve his memory, understand his shortcomings and piss not on his ashes.